At-Home Retreat

I've been feeling really down in the dumps this winter for many reasons which I won't get into here. At one of the very lowest of those depths, I was talking with my husband and we discussed some ways that might help to lift my spirits and help my self-confidence. In the midst of that coversation, I mentioned something about needing to go to a creative retreat where I could connect with other creative people, but money was obviously a concern. As we further investigated retreat possibilities and there were none that were close enough to our home and they were many months off as well. We then moved on to something more immediate and my husband offered to give me an at-home retreat - he would take care of all the cooking and just let me relax and create to my heart's content all weekend!

So a couple of weeks ago, my husband gave me my at-home retreat. He made lasagna and deep-dish pizza, brought breakfast home, ran out for coffee, even gave me a goody bag of Ghirardelli raspberry-filled dark chocolate squares! I got to just create art as much as I could and as long as I could stay awake. I cut and soldered, made earrings, painted canvases, and anything else that I could squeeze in. I also created the fabric ribbons in the picture above. Those began by painting the selvedge edges of some of my Spoonflower fabrics. Once they were dry, I lettered them and added some little accents. Now I've got about 6 yards of totally unique, calligraphed ribbon - what exactly I'm going to do with it I don't know!!!

Hopefully, I can come up with something fabulous by the time I go to The Creative Connection Event!!!! During my at-home retreat weekend, I finally got a chance to look through some of the magazines that I am so far behind in reading. As I was looking through the latest issue of Where Women Create, I came across an ad for the event and got so excited that it was going to be just down the road in Minneapolis (the closest locale to my home along the North Shore). I became a bit disheartened when I saw the cost as I haven't had regular, full-time employment in about four years, but talked about it with my husband. He was so supportive and we decided we were going to do everything we could to get me there!!! I told him that this was all I wanted for my birthday, anniversary, everything - so my deposit has been sent in and in September I'll get to connect with a whole bunch of other creative souls at The Creative Connection Event!!!!

Long story short - I have a honey of a husband!!!

Revamped Nightstand

I've been feeling way under the weather for way too long and haven't had the energy to blog in way too long! But I'm back and ready to report on the creative projects that I have been able to work on. The biggest project was redoing our bedroom as we finally got a new bed which was long overdue. With a new bed coming, I wanted to give our master bedroom some new life without spending much money, if any at all. One of the elements of this project was to revamp our old nightstands to coordinate with the new black bed frame that was coming. I wanted something that you wouldn't find anywhere as well as something that reflected my love of typography and collecting quotations. I started by repainting them in black. Then, I found a couple quotes related to sleeping and napping, worked with them in Photoshop, printed them on antique scrapbook pages and then decoupaged them into the recessed panels of the doors. They look pretty cool next to our comfy, new bed!!!